<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>How Are You Supposed To Know by thegrumblingirl</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738900">How Are You Supposed To Know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl'>thegrumblingirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dishonored (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Back to Friends to Lovers, Corvo keeps looking for a washed-up body on the tide, Daud is a sentimental fool, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Longing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension, unofficial sequel to Why Don't You Save Me?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:41:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>More than once over the course of the past four years, Corvo had found himself watching the river. It was a hard habit to shake, and even harder to forget the nights he had spent searching the dark waves for lights meant to call to him — or, indeed, a body floating on the current. Daud had left him, not for the first but evidently the last time.</p>
<p>He was not coming back.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corvo Attano/Daud, Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How Are You Supposed To Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/spider_fingers/gifts">spider_fingers</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563055">Why Don't You Save Me? (From Myself, If I'm Tired)</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl">thegrumblingirl</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So spider came to me with the absolutely HONKING WONDERFUL idea of Daud using the name Attano to get around some pesky paperwork while he's hiding. I asked if I could run mad with it and they said yes, so here it is: a sequel to <em><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563055">Why Don't You Save Me?</a></em>, now with even more long-distance pining and Daud being a sentimental numbskull.</p>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5u4wJuQaMmwKOgdxEoYB9W?si=X4iu7oPfRlSj8KaA-q9TSg">Spotify playlist</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>1838</b>
</p>
<p>More than once over the course of the past four years, Corvo had found himself watching the river. It was a hard habit to shake, and even harder to forget the nights he had spent searching the dark waves for lights meant to call to him — or, indeed, a body floating on the current. Daud had left him, not for the first but evidently the last time.</p>
<p>He was not coming back.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Corvo had initially returned to his office for some peace and quiet after a day filled with meetings with Jessamine’s advisors and, incidentally, applicants for the position of governess and tutor. At eleven years old, Emily needed someone more adventurous than her old nanny — who would remain in the household, if one wanted to call the Tower such, Jessamine was not about to put a near sixty-year-old woman on the street. But Emily did need teachers now who could more easily keep up with her energy; and Corvo could not spend hours every day practicing sword fighting with her. To be fair, neither would a governess or tutor, as such activities were kept to Corvo’s oversight; but the point still stood.</p>
<p>He and Jessamine had been somewhat surprised when Captain Curnow had put forward then application of his niece, Callista. For years, the two had been estranged, especially during the recent troubled period. Things had come to light — the Abbey desperate to protect its power and influence — that had driven a wedge between Geoff and his sister, and his relationship with his niece had suffered for it; until Callista had effectively broken with her parents and positioned herself on her uncle’s side. Suffered, too, had the citizens of Dunwall — albeit less than they might have had Burrows been alive to go through with his insane plans.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>
  <em>When Spymaster Burrows fell to the assassin Daud, the Empire held its breath for what felt like a Fugue. There was no escaping the deadly consequences of such a catastrophic event.</em>
</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>For four years now, Corvo had been managing the roles of both Royal Protector and Spymaster, and it did not grow to be a less thankless task by the year. However, undoing the damage inflicted on Gristol and Dunwall’s political integrity in particular by Burrows’ extensive attempts at conspiracy — extending as far as a ‘plan’ in case the Empress needed to be ‘taken care of’ — took time. Time that Jessamine had pleaded for Parliament to grant her and Corvo ere they were to trust anyone with the Crown’s secrets again. With the Abbey in shambles and only slowly rebuilding itself under the leadership of Teague Martin, the latest in a line of quickly-changing (and dying) High Overseers, perhaps they might just manage to protect the throne from such insurrection for the remainder of Jessamine’s reign — and, perhaps, Emily’s. Signing off on the field report he had just finished reading, he already reached for the next — and stopped at the name printed in a scrawling script at the top. <em>Rinaldo Escobar</em>. It had been a while since he’d heard from him — family matters had kept him from his duties, apparently. But now he was back, and still delivering astute observations; albeit using quite colourful vocabulary. Corvo knew who Rinaldo was. Hadn’t always known.</p>
<p>It had taken some time for the younger man to confess. After Corvo had questioned him a few times as to his obvious Cullero accent and the manner of his coming to Dunwall, yes, but moreso after Corvo’s insistent inquiries concerning his sword fighting skills — far too refined for an orphaned kid. Unless one had, at some point, received training far beyond the pale of the Grand Serkonan Guard or the Dunwall City Watch.</p>
<p>The day Corvo had finally pressed enough, Rinaldo hung his head and said, “You already know, sir, don’t you.”</p>
<p>Corvo nodded. “I know who taught you that trick with the knife.” The words had stuck in his throat, but they needed out.</p>
<p>Defeated, Escobar shrugged. “Daud didn’t <em>send</em> me here, to you, if that’s any consolation. You found me all on your own.”</p>
<p>Corvo’s eyes had hardened. “It would be to know whether the bastard’s still alive.” Before Rinaldo could answer, Corvo commanded him back into the practice yard to go a few more rounds with the new recruits.</p>
<p>Rinaldo did not attempt to speak to him about Daud again, or about that day. Corvo was reasonably sure that Escobar had been among the skeleton crew Daud had allowed in on the plan. A plan he had not shared with Corvo before it was too late. (Only one warning he’d given him, vague: “Keep her close.”) Too late meaning when he had already driven a sharp piece of metal in Burrows and Campbell’s eye. The last Corvo had seen of him as he’d guarded Jessamine and Emily at the gazebo was Daud’s dark gazes cutting across the gardens, looking to Corvo as though to pin him in place. Corvo did find he could not move. ‘Don’t follow, if you know to preserve yourself,’ that gaze said, and Corvo felt too much of a prickling at the back of his neck to disobey, too wary of the threat of Whalers with bleeding blades appearing in his shadow. Daud disappeared, and with him his moving shadows. A hush fell over the Tower, as if cast into the Void. Ad then, there was chaos.</p>
<p>Time and sound snapped back into place and Corvo crowded Jessamine and Emily further back to shield them from the Overseers’ angry shouts and screams for vengeance. Daud had done them the courtesy of letting himself be known before doing the job no-one had asked or paid him to do, or otherwise Corvo would have ended up in Coldridge within the hour. He’d kept that promise, at least. They’d seen him coming. As it was, it had taken a week, and it hadn’t been Coldridge and the executioner’s block, but Holger Square and a torturer’s brand and evil eye. They’d grabbed him on his way out of the Rudshore Financial District, where it had been rumoured Daud had… kept an office, after the flood. Corvo had been wary of leaving Jessamine even in the care and company of Geoff Curnow, but he’d needed to see for himself. For four nights, he had expected a knock at the window, another unexpected visitor at his desk. He had received neither, nor a word.</p>
<p>At Holger Square, the Overseers’ eyeless masks had leered at him. ‘No-one is coming to save you,’ their ringleader snarled, a hollow voice Corvo did not recognise. Only later would he learn the man’s name, after he double-crossed the others and offered Corvo a bargain to keep the peace: Teague Martin. He’d set Corvo free, in the end; serving himself most of all. The Abbey wanted revenge, wanted <em>someone’s</em> head, and Parliament was too cowardly to either accuse the Empress and her Royal Protector of conspiracy or absolve them of it. There was ‘no precedent.’ No. Corvo supposed there wasn’t. Sometimes he wondered what else there might have been; if Daud had not left him that note. What schemes Burrows might have wrought. Ideas of eradication of the poor, of the ‘undesirables.’ But what could have been, for Corvo, if Daud had not intervened? What might the Outsider have seen for him, in those fleeting futures, strands of time seen only by black eyes?</p>
<p>He would never know. Perhaps he was better off not knowing. And wherever Daud was, wherever he had run, perhaps he was better off, too.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Daud had been many things over the course of his life — mentor, leader. Killer. He’d worn enough disguises to join the circus, had he ever the inclination; only he suspected an audience would not appreciate every skit ending in blood. Seeing as that was the only punchline he knew.</p>
<p>These days, he wore disguises still — by appearance and by name; had done so for four years now. Moving from place to place, leaving without a word or forwarding address whenever people seemed to be getting too used to him. Especially the children — Daud cursed whatever it was in his manner that made street urchins decide that they liked him. Scoffing at the latest band of ruddy-cheeked little arseholes, he shook his head. It couldn’t be his kind demeanour, that was for sure. But he supposed that not beating them with a stick as soon as seeing them outside his small carving shop — more of a hole in the wall than a store — counted as a kind thing. If they warmed up to him any more than they already had, it would be time to move on again soon. There’d be no living with them, he thought grimly — and the most daring of those he’d taught would call it ‘grumpy’ — and moved to unlock the door.</p>
<p>“Mr Attano!” the owner of the apothecary across the street called when she saw him.</p>
<p>Daud bit back a curse, both at the name and her hollering it across the road, for every simpleton to hear. Albeit the greatest simpleton of all was Daud himself, for using the name in the first place. He’d run out of ready aliases on the road somewhere between Cullero and Potterstead, and after that he’d made it up as he went along. It was frighteningly easy, telling no-one his first name and expecting everybody to go along with Mr So-and-so; but it generally worked. It spared him from having to answer to <em>two</em> false names, and equally it kept everyone at a healthy distance. He wasn’t about to look that gift ox in the mouth. Those jaws meant misfortune, in conjunction and the right order. Those who had called him Daud had always been few, and he saw no sense in changing that now. He did not like not being himself — being entirely unknown — but he supposed there was no-one he knew now who needed scaring into doing what he wanted from them; aside from the occasional fool who wanted him to carve something that might be used to harm another. Even if Daud’s bark was worse than his bite these days, he still knew. He could tell, and it wasn’t magic so much as knowing how to read people. He’d sat and stood across from enough men who wanted another dead, and even a number of women. He knew the look. Especially if they were ashamed and wanted to hide it. To be fair, in Dunwall only a few had ever been ashamed of the things they’d asked Daud to do. Too many believed it marked <em>them</em> as strong, or remarkable, <em>to have the nerve.</em> To pay for it, anyway. None of them would have ever… but that was what Daud had made his money off, so he had always politely neglected to point it out. Well. Not always.</p>
<p>On reflection, not living <em>as</em> himself did not save Daud from living <em>with</em> himself. It was perhaps that which he did not like.</p>
<p>It was then that he recalled his situation and the very particularly odd stupidity he had burdened himself with this time; in calling himself ‘Attano.’ He would tell anyone to beware nostalgia. It was would seem his own sentimentality had really gotten one over on him this time. And now, he was being punished for it by way of the apothecary lady. He may be witless, but he was not stupid, and he saw that wandering gaze. That poor woman, to be so surrounded by men not to her liking that she would think <em>him</em> handsome. He nearly shuddered, but restrained himself. He turned to nod good morning when, from the side, another voice said, “Attano?” He turned, and saw a women; tall, dark hair, dark eyes, a strong nose and brow and — oh, Outsider’s balls. Even if he’d never met her, he’d have known by her face who she was. The resemblance was uncanny. (And Daud was right: Corvo <em>would</em> have made a pretty girl.) Acutely aware of the apothecary watching them curiously (and at least somewhat suspiciously), Daud jerked his head towards the inside of the shop.</p>
<p>“Step inside,” he said. She might not have recognised him yet, but he could not risk putting his business out on the street for all to see. If he got lucky, he could sell her some cock and bull story and get rid of her before any customers turned up.</p>
<p>She followed the direction, visibly reluctant, and let him herd her into the shop. First mistake. Never turn your back on an assassin.</p>
<p>He closed the door, thought about locking gut reconsidered, and moved past her towards the small counter and chair where he spent most of his hours, these days. Hours upon hours of perching on slippery rooftops had prepared him for this both very well and very ill indeed. He knew patience. He simply wasn’t great friends with it. That, and waiting for someone to come in to pick up a whale statue of the kind he had sold dozens of on the black market in Gristol was nothing like waiting for the perfect opportunity to carry out a hit — obviously. Had he the time, he would have rolled his eyes at himself for such inane observations. He hated the thought that he might miss it.</p>
<p>“You don’t look like an Attano,” the woman said bluntly as he turned around.</p>
<p>“The name isn’t as uncommon as for all of us to be related. I was not aware that it was a club with entry requirements.” He took his time to muster her now, and he did not miss the knife strapped to her belt.</p>
<p>“Up here in Morley, it is,” she returned without fear, but with challenge.</p>
<p>Another mistake. <em>Never make an enemy of a witch, and always fear a killer</em>. Daud sighed.</p>
<p>“Good to see you, too, Beatrici.”</p>
<p>Her eyes grew comically wide. “How—“</p>
<p>“I used to be a friend of your brother’s. When we were young, in Batista.”</p>
<p>“He only ever had one—“ she stopped short. Recognition filled her gaze. “Daud.”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>At once, her face twisted in anger. “You <em>asshole</em>.”</p>
<p>“That’s me,” Daud returned plainly.</p>
<p>“How long has it been?” Corvo’s sister asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking him up and down critically; as if to be sure that he really was the knuckle-kneed kid that had joined her family for supper a few times a week, for a time. Before she had disappeared, and a short while after. Until <em>he</em> had disappeared.</p>
<p>“The same years have passed for you as they have for me,” Daud replied, and she cocked her head.</p>
<p>“I’m well aware I am the elder, but if you are that intent on heading off an imagined slight, I suppose the shoe fits. And of course I look better. I didn’t murder my way through all of Gristol during my prime.” Her tone was cutting enough, but she did not seem the type to go running for the Guard. Daud had a hunch that her own adventures had not at all been above board, if he remembered correctly what Corvo had whispered to him of his sister’s dreams.</p>
<p>“What <em>did</em> you go and do?” he asked, to divert attention, and now she raised her brow.</p>
<p>“Oh no,” she shook her head. “First, you tell me that the ever-loving Void you thought you were doing the day you stabbed my brother in the back after promising you’d help him.”</p>
<p>“What business is that of yours,” Daud questioned. “You have not bothered to see your brother for forty years.” He stopped, realising the implications of what she’d said. “How do you know that?” he demanded, suddenly on his guard. It had been in the papers, of course, but not that Corvo and he had been in contact. Corvo had protected that secret. Last line of defence.</p>
<p>She smiled, and it was hatefully smug. “I may not see him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear from him.”</p>
<p>Daud narrowed his eyes. “He would never divulge such information to anyone who sent him a dirt-streaked missive and claimed to be his long-lost sibling.”</p>
<p>“He would if that <em>dirt-streaked</em> <em>letter</em> was hand-delivered,” she countered.</p>
<p>Daud stared.</p>
<p>“Ah.” Her smile widened. “He’s not told you.”</p>
<p>“When?” was all Daud asked.</p>
<p>“1825, roundabout. I went to Dunwall just after the death of the Empress’ father.” She eyed him. “You didn’t…?”</p>
<p>“No,” Daud bit out. “I gave that family as wide a berth as I could.”</p>
<p>“Even while you felled Jessamine’s allies all around her,” Beatrici reminded him.</p>
<p>“Hardly. They had the hateful tendency to grow back.”</p>
<p>“Until one grew so powerful he nearly would have sunk the city into the river,” she said astutely. “Corvo cursed you for your discovery of Burrows, as much as he had to thank you for it.” Her gaze hardened. “He did not thank you for what you did next.”</p>
<p>Daud sighed, and broke the hold her eyes had on him. What he had done next… he’d done as much for the Empire as for himself. And wasn’t that uneasy to sleep on. He’d thought it all through. He’d considered every avenue, and there had only been one thing left. One more play. The funny thing about murder as employment was that it lasted until you got yourself killed — or until you took a side. In most cases, the latter preceded the former directly. Daud had endeavoured to prevent exactly that, and not merely for himself. What he’d done was simple; he’d taken Burrows’ contract. With Corvo and the Empress suspicious and demanding greater oversight, Burrows had become more and more paranoid. Instead of curbing his thirst for power, as Daud had hoped, his warning to Corvo that night in 1831 had only served to make him worse. His foul plans had accelerated in an effort to preclude discovery by catastrophe; and it was had been that infernal scheme with the rats that had pushed Daud into action. The contract he then took, handed down from Burrows’ office in Dunwall Tower, was not for the murder of the Empress (which Daud was sure would have followed eventually) but the distribution of rats and cobbled bits of bone across the streets of Dunwall. Especially the poor streets.</p>
<p>Daud had considered bringing the evidence to Corvo and Empress Jessamine; but what would they have done? They would have insisted on informing the City Watch (as if that lot could have told a rat from a bird in the sky) and Parliament, and <em>then</em> everything would have been all over. Those rich bastards would never have lifted a finger, even the so-called progressive among them, if they’d had the absurd confidence that the plague Burrows had been so intent on bringing to Gristol’s shores couldn’t touch them. It still made Daud scoff. A thought a rat gave a shit whose bones it was picking clean. And so, he had said nothing. He’d quietly sent all of the Whalers, save for a trusted few, out of the city; having them think he would go along with Burrows’ plan and wanted them out of the city’s bounds for the worst of the outbreak. It worked well enough, only nothing ever worked on Billie Lurk. Once she’d realised what he’d been really planning, she’d been <em>furious</em>. He couldn’t blame her. He was giving away her inheritance. All because he’d somehow discovered his shrivelled, blackened soul, and a conscience with it.</p>
<p>Emily had been seven years old. Daud knew as well as anyone that she was Corvo’s. Perhaps it was that what stayed his hand. Daud had worked hard enough on destroying his own life. He could not bring himself to set the torch and tar to hers. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for Corvo, Daud wouldn’t have hesitated. But he’d found himself doubting far too long.</p>
<p>When it was done, the Whalers, hidden away, would believe that the job went wrong, or that Campbell had finally made good on that old invasion threat. They would ask questions, but Daud had not sent them out in small groups with strict instructions not to share the details of their destinations with the others, for nothing. With their lines of communication severed along with the Arcane Bond, accomplished by his own hand in a bloody and ugly ritual, there was no chasing after their master. Daud and the remaining four — Billie, Thomas, Rulfio, and Rinaldo — had had no choice but to flee. He knew that by running, he put Corvo in danger, but he had covered both their tracks diligently. Of course the Abbey tried to accuse Jessamine of contracting him to kill her opponents, and Corvo of being complicit; but Daud had done all this to let her keep her throne, after all. But the only way to stay would have been a stack of royal pardons, and Daud had not lost all of his grit yet. He had left falsified letters and documents behind in Burrows’ office that told the tall tale of a dispute between them; about payment and extortion. Campbell, of course, was his own can of worms, but Daud knew — hoped — that Corvo would be able to deal with the Abbey. No-one would fault a known heretic for murdering the most notoriously repugnant High Overseer in a century. The worst, Daud thought, that he could be accused of was perhaps the most obvious.</p>
<p>He hadn’t said goodbye.</p>
<p>And so, his tale ended, and he half wished that Beatrici would simply turn on her heel and leave. She didn’t. Instead, she looked at him, more disappointed than askance, and said, “I cannot believe my brother still pines after your sorry hide.”</p>
<p>Daud scoffed, as if to say, ‘He doesn’t, don’t be ridiculous.’ It was a good way of concealing the hurt that came with the notion.</p>
<p>She continued, ignoring him, “But then, I don’t get what the Empress sees in him, either, so what do I know.”</p>
<p>Daud chanced a glance at her.</p>
<p>“What are you going to do?” she asked.</p>
<p>He raised a brow. “Shouldn’t that be my question? Undoubtedly you’re going to run and tell him everything.” Daud was still reeling from the revelation that Corvo had been in contact with his long-lost sister for <em>decades</em> and had never mentioned it. Daud had never expected much from him, or so he’d told himself, but to find that this confidence had been denied, the one most strongly betraying their shared past in Karnaca… it stung like seawater in an open wound.</p>
<p>“I am not so invested in gossip as to risk my brother’s safety,” she told him, sounding too much like scolding him. “You fled Dunwall for a reason and he knows that, for all that he must have wished to hear from you that you are safe. He would perhaps be less understanding at how you thought it would be a bright idea to use the name <em>Attano</em>.”</p>
<p>He had no good answer to that save perhaps for ‘it’s a small town in Morley, where people do not care.’ But the truth was that southern names were rare in these parts; especially when the name just happened to be the same as the Royal Protector’s, no matter how far away Gristol was.</p>
<p>“What do you want me to do?” he rumbled instead, not wanting to do her the favour of admitting she was right and he’d been an idiot. She had enjoyed picking at him enough when they were teenagers; what with him being closer in age to her than Corvo and nevertheless preferring her brother’s company.</p>
<p>He still did.</p>
<p>She cocked her head. “Going back would be a start. Or at least get a message to him.” At his quizzical look, she shrugged. “He’s got one of yours working for him now. Didn’t you know?”</p>
<p>Daud felt unforgivably out of the loop.</p>
<p>“Who?” he grated.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Escobar. Damn that boy. Daud spent that evening sweeping the shop and cleaning the sawdust off every surface. He looked up, still sour over what Beatrici had told him. Go back, she said, as if it could be that easy. Four years. He paused, leaning on the broom. Could it be enough? Had he faded deep enough into the shadows? With Burrows and Campbell’s blood still fresh on his steel, he’d felt as though eternity would be too soon. He couldn’t go back to Dunwall. Corvo had to know that.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>High Cold had not left Corvo in the highest of spirits. Martin, High Overseer and Blackmailer, had successfully conned himself to the head of the Abbey years ago — regrettably, it must be said, with Corvo’s help. It had been the only way. Corvo was not sure it had been the better one. Months had passed since his last earnest attempt at finding a trace of the Whalers, and of Daud, through Rinaldo; and never was he sure whether the empty hands the man returned with every time were true or an order from his master. Corvo was his master now, but what sway held coin over the shadow of the Arcane Bond? Corvo hope he inspired enough loyalty for Rinaldo to tell him the truth about whether the Knife lived or died. But he had long resigned himself that he would never know. He had had to tell Jessamine the truth — speaking of loyalty. For so long, he had kept that moment of his past to himself, that inch of what still belonged to him alone, not to the Empire, or the City or the Empress. Everything else was hers, and had been, since the day they had promised themselves and their future to each other. A promise they had kept, through all of this. And even through Corvo’s wrought confession. To tell her that he had known the Knife of Dunwall as a boy, that he had seen the face on those posters and recognised it, that he had let him go. Let him go to commit one last act of terror.</p>
<p>Daud had forced his will on the world that day and the years before. Corvo remembered telling him, ‘Lord Merriweather was a friend.’ But he had hardly made him pay for it, had he? Instead, he had patched up his wound, and had let him sleep in his bed to recuperate, to leave before the dawn could cast long shadows into light of truth and force them to account. Daud had set in motion that day a sequence of events so clear that Corvo sometimes wondered if he had planned it all. Yet, when Jessamine had asked, he’d denied the accusation. He told her about the promise. ‘If I ever get a contract for your Empress, don’t worry. You’ll see me coming.’ Were Jessamine anyone but who she was, she might have slapped him then. Instead, she poured them both another measure of whiskey.</p>
<p>‘What else?’ she asked. And Corvo answered, for his crimes. Twenty-five years later, Daud still got him into trouble.</p>
<p>He was wrenched from his thoughts by the hurried entrance of the last person he expected to see that day: Rinaldo. He was out of breath, and he seemed to not have felt the rain beating down on him even as his clothes were dripping with the weight of the seasons.</p>
<p>“Lord Protector,” he panted, “there is news.”</p>
<p>Corvo sat up straight. “What news?”</p>
<p>“Thomas thinks he’s seen Daud. He’s sure it was him.”</p>
<p>“Well, is he sure or does he <em>think</em> it was him?”</p>
<p>“Sir, we all think we see Daud three times a week. If I got letters every time, I’d not get any work done. If Thomas wrote to me about it, knowing who I work for, he’s sure. Besides, it’s Thomas. He’s the one goody-two-shoes in a band of assassins.”</p>
<p>“And why does he write to you, not to Lurk? Or Fleet?”</p>
<p>“It was Old Lamprow. If Daud came from Morley, he’s moving south. Thomas thought you should know. Daud told us, at the end. About you and him. He had to, to explain why he commanded you, the Empress, and the Princess unharmed and, if necessary, protected.”</p>
<p>Corvo sighed, ran fingers through his hair. “And what now? We wait?”</p>
<p>Rinaldo shrugged. “I suppose so, sir.” He left after delivering the remainder of his assignments less urgency. Corvo had difficulty comfortably settling at his desk after that. Was Daud truly returning to Dunwall? But if so, what for?</p>
<p>Corvo looked out the window, and watched storm clouds forming.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>He dared not speak of it to Jess, for fear that she would take one good look at him ad see the energy thrumming through him — not that of the hunter before the kill, but something deeper, less predatory. She would tell him to go searching, to go up to Old Lamprow and pick up the scent on the way there. She’d tell him, ‘If anyone can find him, it’s you. He’d <em>want</em> to be found.’ She had asked him once why he’d never gone to chase him. Corvo had looked at her and told her he would never leave her unprotected to go chasing a ghost from the past. ‘Ah, but it’s not past, is it?’ she’d asked, with that perceptive light in her eye, and Corvo had averted his gaze. He couldn’t go searching for him. Daud had to know that.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>
  <em>And such, they were at an impasse.</em>
</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Corvo's steps were weary as he trudged up the stairs towards his quarters. Arrived at his door, Corvo looked forward to shedding the burdens of the day. Opening it, he understood that the day was not yet over.</em> As before, and becoming a bad habit, Corvo ended up rooted to the spot in the open doorway.</p>
<p>“There’s a draft.” But Daud’s voice was quieter now. Gentler. He knew the weight of this memory as well as Corvo did. Corvo stepped inside, closing the door. He hoped that here, the parallels would end.</p>
<p>“Are you hurt?” was nonetheless the first question out of him as he came closer. Daud turned his head, only a fraction, to observe his approach.</p>
<p>“No quippy exchange of titles?” Daud returned instead. Yes, he remembered. Corvo wondered whether they would be doomed to clinging to what little they saw of each other like this forever.</p>
<p>“You have abdicated yours,” he answered, “and have duly burdened me with a second. It would hardly seem balanced.”</p>
<p>Daud shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war, or so they say.”</p>
<p>Corvo nearly dropped into his chair with the surprise of it. “And for both one is best equipped with armour,” he rallied. He did not dare ask which of the two Daud did have in mind. The last time he’d appeared like this, they had not had the most harmonious of conversations, putting not too fine a point to it. He watched Daud not quite squirm from his side of the desk. Not much had changed in the intervening years, and Daud had likely already done a survey of the room, so there was hardly fodder for smalltalk. He waited.</p>
<p>“I ran into your sister,” Daud said eventually, as if picking at an idle thread of conversation.</p>
<p>Corvo felt his eyes widen. He had not heard from Beatrici in far too—</p>
<p>“Stop making that face, she’s fine,” Daud forestalled the barrelling of his thoughts to unseemly conclusions; sounding insulted. “Fuck’s sake, Attano.”</p>
<p>“You can’t—“</p>
<p>“Actually, I can,” Daud interrupted him, and added: “Seeing as incidentally, it was you who got me into trouble with her in the first place.”</p>
<p>“What did I do?” Corvo returned. <em>Save for writing page-long letters to her about your disappearance from my life, again</em>, he didn’t say. Over that internal mortification, he almost missed Daud’s uncomfortable expression.</p>
<p>“I used your name,” Daud rumbled in a rush, stringing the words together so fast Corvo could barely follow.</p>
<p>“What?” Corvo felt entirely wrong-footed, not least because this so-called reunion was going <em>nothing</em> like he would have expected. A dagger at his throat in the dark, maybe. A clandestine message indicating a time and a place, otherwise. Daud, gruff and mysterious, not like… this. Like the Daud he used to know. Not the Knife of Dunwall.</p>
<p>“I called myself Attano, for want of an alias I hadn’t burnt, and that’s when your sister decided to wander in on me.” Daud avoided Corvo’s eye. “I didn’t go looking for her,” he said sulkily. “Didn’t know to, seeing as you never told me you were in contact with her.”</p>
<p>Now, Corvo bristled. “How, precisely, should I have told you? And when? The first or the second time in ten years I saw you?”</p>
<p>There they were, back to arguing. Corvo sighed, and leaned back. Daud looked equally preoccupied, and abruptly Corvo realised the same thing he must have: there was nothing to stand between them now. The past had thorns, but neither voice nor shackles. Not anymore.</p>
<p>“Why did you come here?” Corvo asked the same question he had only dared in the dark before, searching for an answer he knew Daud could not give.</p>
<p>Daud looked up at him. “To see you.”</p>
<p>Cautiously, Corvo smiled.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Me, chanting: DAUD ATTANO DAUD ATTANO DAUD ATTANO</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>